The Weight of Snow
by Phantomholdsmyheart2743
Summary: A surprisingly intimate gift leads to the best Christmas Erik could ever ask for. Strong M-Rating. E/C COMPLETE


A/N: Merry Christmas, my lovelies! I'm sorry I've been MIA for eternity(it's a whole saga starting at the ruin of my old laptop—which was full of fics—including All The Words I Cannot Sing, but it hasn't been abandoned, I'm just trying to reconstruct all the lost chapters )but I hope this makes up for it. As ever, reviews feed the author. DEFINITELY M RATED!

He watched her from behind the mirror. A transgression too abhorrent to contemplate, but as her tongue peeped from between her rosebud lips as she scrutinized the page before her, he found little to regret in it. It was Christmas Eve, and the opera house rang with drunken carols and the bawdy laughs of a long and festive night.

He had followed her through the revelries, her silent angel always. He could almost pretend that it was not a selfish pursuit. He had never seen her smile so wide, or her cheeks so pink. She was never so free with him, and his fingers burned to be the ones who twirled her across the dancefloor to the sound of rough violins. Oh how he wished it was his face that caught the brush of her curls. When they were together she always seemed so somber(lately since the unmasking and the boy's departure), but to see her here: dancing. Grace in every step, with the carefree looseness that only champagne could bring.

To his surprise she had retired to her dressing room early, ducking the attentions of her many admirers with a bashful modesty that belied reproach. He would have left her then, safe in her dressing room framed by two candles. He could have been content with that, but then she had approached the mirror.

Her brown curls framed her rosy face as she smiled at her own reflection. Her blue eyes seemed to be looking straight into his soul. Her half-moon eyelashes, her smile. And she drew the pins from her hair, and the remaining curls tumbled free across her shoulders. Beautiful.

Christine, Christine.

She brushed her hair, tied it in a dove-grey ribbon that he had given her last week at her lesson. Oh, how she had smiled! It was as if she had never seen his face, and he had longed to beg for the touch of her hand upon his own.

Then she had slipped behind her screen to undress. He looked away, it was temptation enough to see her clothed silhouette. He needed no more reason to feel like the devil he was.

Erik was not one to celebrate Christmas. The idea of a time of general cheer and kindness to ones fellow man had unsurprisingly never included him. The monster, the angel voice trapped inside a decaying corpse. Watching Christine celebrate was the closest that he ever got. After all, angels can't give presents, and this was the first Christmas that had passed with her knowing him as a man.

Watching her, swathed in her white dressing gown, slippers poking from the hem. This felt like grace. She flipped through the book for several minutes, with a rapidity that suggested this wasn't her first read of the book. A small glass of water sat by the table beside her, and she sipped it every so often as she underlined phrases and made notes in the margins.

What was she so intent on? He would learn it word for word, he would ensure that they could discuss it together. And oh how his mind frenzied thinking about nights in his home. Each of them with tea, her laughing and placing a delicate hand on his arm as she smiled at some witticism…. But nights like that had been nonexistent since the reveal of his face, since he had demanded a kiss and she had ran. Oh, what was she reading? Her lap obscured the title of the manuscript, her chewed pencil tapped against the pages.

At last she closed the book. Perhaps he could slip out and read the title after she had gone? But no, she wrapped it lightly in paper and bound it in string. Tied a clumsy bow, and wrote one final word upon it. Then, to his immense surprise, she carried it to the mirror and left it there. There it was. Leaning like an offering.

A click of the door startled him. Where had she gone? Dressed like that, who was she meeting? Was it that insipid boy that hung upon her every word? He had thought he was gone? Antarctica or the North Pole—no matter. Somewhere cold and universes away—

Then he heard easy laughter, shrill and bright: Meg. Ah, a Christmas sleepover. He would leave her to her merriment. He would not make the mistake of listening to their private talks again; the last time he had been thoroughly embarrassed by their content.

No, he had best confine his curiosity to the package. So with a near-silent click, the mirror opened. By the light of the candles, he appraised the offering. Clear as day upon the festive paper, in beloved Christine's script was his name: Erik. _To My Erik_.

_My Erik_.

Tears sprang to his eyes, and with feverish hands he unwrapped it. It was a libretto, bound and embossed. In gold, the title read: Erik's music.

He opened it to find it blank save for titles describing events in their relationship. Beneath each title, she had written her feelings about each song.

_You told me your name, and I felt a transgression in the syllables of it. The day I stopped praying you were an angel._

_Your heart broke in this piece, ange. I heard the pieces falling from my bedchamber. I was too afraid to go to you, though I wanted to be there._

_Our first lesson as man and woman. Your eyes were so very bright, and your hands so very beautiful. _

_You played this lullaby the first night I agreed to stay. You've played it ever since._

_Erik, when you sang this to me we were sitting in the music room. It was the first time we sat together on the piano bench, and you guided my fingers in the first notes._

_Erik, you played this song when you thought I was sleeping. The echoes of it permeated my dreams._

_Erik, you sang this tune with no accompaniment when I was afraid of the dark. I am not afraid anymore._

_Erik, this was the first music of yours that you allowed me to sing with you. Such a gift could never be forgotten._

_I see desire in your golden eyes. I am not afraid of it._

_I miss falling asleep to the sound of your music. I miss you. Erik, I miss you._

_Ange, your soul was in every melody—as it is in everything you do. J'adore ta voix, mon ange. Your passion makes me burn for things from you that I dare not ask for…., your Christine._

He was stunned. His heart, usually so regulated was beating so fast he nearly saw spots. She had written this. With her hand. He traced the parting words. His music…_he_…meant enough to her that she had given him this gift!

Her Erik. She claimed him hers, and he found nothing but jubilation in her possession. Hers to do with what she wished. Hers to mold, hers to touch, hers forever. If she knew how much he longed to be hers in every sense of the word. In ways that she had perhaps never contemplated.

He burned throughout his journey home. He longed to speak to her. They had been so distant since the reveal of his face. Lessons used to give way to firelight chats, and now ended in them retiring to their separate rooms in silence. He had thought that there was nothing left between them but the music. Clearly, he was wrong! He was hers!

In his home, he was too restless to sleep—not that he slept very much as a rule. In fact, the nights he slept best were the nights where he knew that she was there. Sleeping fitfully in her room across the hall. Her presence had always made his home more alive.

He tried to transcribe the tunes that she had labeled in the book, but his mind kept wandering to her sweeter words. The beauty of his hands, her adoration of his voice, the safety she found in his melodies. How she missed him. She claimed to be unafraid of desire… She wrote that she burned. The grandfather clock above his mantle chimed midnight. Now it was Christmas day.

He was a madman granted his wish, to be wanted by an angel so bright that she blotted out the sun. Christine, to be hers!

For the first time, he felt rather festive. But nevertheless he passed a restless night, wandering through the tunnels—desperate to see her, afraid to seek her out. Maybe he was hiding? Maybe he was mad, absolutely committable for thinking that she could care for him at all.

Dawn came, and with it brought fresh doubts. He went above desperate for a sight of her. She was not in her dressing room, or with the ballerinas still sleeping off the party the night before. She would not be in her apartment, for he noted the key still left upon her dressing table. Where was she? He went up to the roof. It had snowed anew, and the statue of Apollo was heavy with the offerings of the sky. Everything looked fresh and new. His lungs burned with the cold of it. He felt…present. He felt like life—for once—was not grey and lonely. That perhaps today, with fresh snow upon the ground, he shouldn't be afraid to take a chance. He stayed up there for a time, and then returned below.

She was in his home. He knew it from the moment he stepped into the front door. Or perhaps even before. Christine! The soft sound of her breathing, the gentle fragrance of the perfume he had given her: vanilla and citrus. She must have bathed, for something in the air felt damp and warm.

But where was she? He searched through the rooms, finding an abandoned cup of tea—still warm—upon the kitchen table. He took a moment to adore her for feeling so comfortable in his home, to run his fingertips across the rim where her mouth had touched the cup.

He checked her bedroom, nothing. The music room, the library, the living room, the kitchen again—there was simply nowhere else she should be! Unless…

Hardly daring to breath, he approached the only room he hadn't checked. His.

And there she was, as she so often was in his dreams. Curled with her cheek upon his pillow. Atop the black covers, a pile of white silk and brown curls: Christine. He crept closer. Her hair was still damp, and it left watermarks across the silken pillowcase—how he hoped they would remain forever as proof that she had lain there.

Her face was so tranquil that he hated to speak, and yet he couldn't watch her any longer without knowing…

And her eyes fluttered open as he knelt by the bedside. Blue, blue—impossibly blue and so alive. She smiled at him as though she were happy to look upon his masked face.

"I was afraid you were gone. The fires were out." She made no move to sit up, perhaps the drowsiness of sleep aided her bravery or clouded her judgement for he felt a shudder go through him as she reached one pale hand to stroke his unmasked cheek. As if it were commonplace. "Merry Christmas, _ange._"

"There could be no finer gift than this moment," He swore fervently. He clutched her hand tightly, skin to skin and she smiled again. The intimacy almost scalded him, as she tucked an errant lock of his hair behind one ear. What madness was this? He would gladly live in it forever.

"Did you like your present?"

"You called me yours. Am I your Erik, Christine?"

She blushed, hiding her face in the crook of her arm. "I think it so often. I didn't mean to confess—"

"A blessed mistake."

They were silent for a moment, his comment too raw in the still air. She sat up and drew her knees to her chest. "I missed you. Like this. I miss being here and spending time with you. I didn't mean to fall asleep."

"You have the use of my home at any time at your disposal."

"I was waiting for you. I was afraid you'd run away." Her hands tugged nervously at the hem of her dressing gown. "I thought if I waited here, I could stop you from packing…it sounds so foolish now!" She covered her face.

"I would not leave you, Christine."

"But when Raoul was here, you were so cold—I thought that you would leave. And since I took your mask you've been so distant. You don't…touch me. You don't look at me, I feel like a ghost." Tears were slipping from her eyes. He could not bear it. With a soft cry, he gathered her into his arms. She surrendered with a sob to his embrace, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"My love!" The endearment slipped out, and instead of pulling away she pushed closer. There were no barriers now. Whatever façade they had labored under was gone. This was the truth. The truth was that they had always been more to each other than teacher and student, had always been more than friends. Propriety be damned! They were the only two here. It always came back to this: Erik and Christine. Angel and demon.

"You love me." She stated, her breath tickling his ear.

He lost a moan to the sensation of her heartbeat against his, and swept her fully onto his lap. The edge of the bed supported his back as he pulled her closer. His body was on fire, this must be what it is to burn for ones sins. He didn't care. She was in his arms, and she was holding him back. This was the closest they had ever been. Her hair tickled his chin, and he could feel her breaths. The rise and fall of them as she nuzzled—nuzzled!—her face into the crook of his neck. He could feel her tears against his skin. The shift of her body was driving his desire to distraction, and he tried his best to repress the urge to arch into her warmth.

She was so deliciously warm in his arms—he could not muster the power of speech, just pulled her tighter. She went limp, and at first he worried that he had crushed her. But no, she sighed and relaxed into him. Her legs across his thighs twisting so that she straddled him instead—

"Don't leave me." She pleaded. "Don't leave me, Erik."

"Never, my dearest. Never." It was a groan more than anything. She had never heard the voice she loved so in such a state. Husky, rough, _hers_.

She shuddered, and it shook his frame. She shifted her weight and he lost a moan. He had never felt so depraved. So content. So filthy as when her gasp betrayed that she had felt his desire against her, and did not pull away.

"This monster burns for you, Christine. This ruined face, this broken body. I long to have every inch of you. I'm yours to do with what you will."

And she met his gaze, her cheeks burning, and deliberately rocked again. He moaned, and the sweetest sound he had ever heard slipped from her lips in reply.

"Mine." She replied. "Mine. I can't pretend otherwise anymore, I won't! I won't pretend that I don't want you—I won't pretend that I don't see your face every time I close my eyes. I won't pretend that I don't long for your hands on my skin—"

_Your passion makes me burn_…, she had written. And now they were in the fire.

"My Erik." She reached for his face, and he flinched. But she merely cupped it in her hands, masked and unmasked cheeks and rocked again. "Mine." She gasped.

"Take what you want from me." He begged. "Anything."

Every instinct within him was screaming for him to lay her down and press her into the mattress. He had not known that she would be so possessive, he had not known that he would adore it so much. Christine, undulating upon him. Wanting him. Dreaming of his touch. Seeking her pleasure from his body! He almost embarrassed himself at the thought. He did not want her to be afraid, so he did his best to remain still as she rocked against his hardness.

But he found his hands curling over her hips, found his traitorous body rocking into her every thrust. She wasn't wearing a corset, and he could feel her softness. His wicked hands crept upwards and felt the hard peaks of her nipples.

"Erik!" She cried out.

"Forgive me!"

"Don't stop. Please don't stop." And she grasped his hands and pulled them to her breasts.

With a moan, he captured them in his hands. Knowing he was the only one to ever see her this way. His Christine.

He cursed the mask's intrusion. He longed to kiss her, longed to take her breasts in his mouth. Longed to drag his lips down her bare torso, and lower.

"Christine!" The weight of his fantasies nearly overwhelmed him as she pressed a kiss to his throat. A shy tongue tasted his skin, and he could bear it no longer. With a growl, he stood pulling her with him. She pushed him away, his back hit the mattress, and before he could make a sound—of penitence or protest—she was beside him. Over him. All around him. Her lips on his face, her hands in his hair. Her—

His mask in her hand. He cried out his betrayal, reaching for it.

"No," She said. "I want to see you."

And God help her she did. She looked and looked at him with the intent she usually reserved for music. She did not run, scream, or die. She stayed. She looked upon his bloated lips, his twisted nose, the scarred, smeared expanse of veined temple. And she was smiling. Smiling at the devil, reaching for a monster. Her hands—soft and white against his mangled face. He almost cried at the tenderness of her searching fingertips. Gentle. So gentle with him. She knelt over him on the bed, and he could not move. Did not dare to move as he felt her breath on his deformed cheek, then her lips. The wetness of her tongue. He moaned his surrender, and dared to capture her shoulders and pull her closer in reply when she asked: "Am I hurting you?"

She laid atop him. She was so light, so warm. "Mine." She repeated, and closed her eyes, parting her lips in unquestioned invitation. He was not brave enough to take it.

Erik rolled so she was beneath him, a desperate attempt at the façade of power. They both knew it. "You'd have this monster in your bed?"

"We're in your bed." She teased.

"You tempt me."

"I want you to kiss me. Don't be afraid, ange."

"I am the Opera Ghost, I fear nothing."

"You are my Erik. I am telling you not to be afraid of this, of us. Please."

"When did you become the brave one?"

"When you pulled away. I never want to be that distant from you." She ran her hands over his chest. "You told me once that I was a silly girl to believe in angels and fairytales. But I do. Because without them I wouldn't be brave enough for this. We both hide in the dark, ange. I hid what I wanted, even from myself. And now you're hiding from me, even as I'm willing beneath you. You begged me once for a kiss. That day I took your mask. I'm offering now. I'm begging now." She arched against him and they both shuddered.

"Christine, if I kiss you…you will be mine always."

"Don't you see, Erik? I always have been. Since the first time we spoke." And she offered her lips once more.

A kiss! How could he dare to claim it? Tentatively, reverently, with utmost care did he lay his misshapen lips to hers. It was clumsy, and embarrassed—even as his soul sang from the joy of it—he pulled away. She wouldn't let him. She fisted her hands in his lapels and pulled him back to her searching mouth. There was nothing to do but surrender.

Passion took over, and he found himself coaxing the most delicious noises from her throat as they kissed. Her tongue slipped out to taste him and he nearly reached ecstasy. He opened to her assaults, a small part of him still waiting for her to cry out for him to stop. But he found that her fingers were tugging at the buttons and seams of his immaculate garments, trying to undo and to push.

She didn't realize, she couldn't know that his face was only the beginning of the damage that he bore. He pulled away from her intoxicating flavor to protest, but her lips hit his collarbone and sucked hard enough to leave a mark. All protest vanished. If she wanted to allow a monster to love her, then who was he to argue?

She had managed to get his tailcoat off, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and was working at his shirt. His hands had been similarly occupied, and he found that one was stroking her silken thigh, and the other was cupping her breast. This had escalated to a point that he thought he would never experience.

"Christine, are you sure?" He asked. "If you have even an inkling that you may regret this—"

"Feel how sure." She seized his hand and pulled it between her legs. Still modest, her face went red as her wetness coated his fingers even through the material of her pantaloons. He gave a tentative stroke and she keened his name. It was perhaps the most erotic experience of his life. He had done this to her. Unmasked, without pretense.

"Oh Christine, you're aching for me." His own desire, which had been distracted, reared to life. He ground it into the mattress, desperate for any friction. He stroked her again, softly circling the dampness. He longed to touch her skin, and she must have felt the same because she shrugged out of her dressing gown, revealing her bare arms. Her chemise was nearly transparent, and the rosy peaks of her nipples pushed against the fabric.

"Christine, let me give you pleasure."

She nodded her assent, and he groaned as he slid his hands beneath her chemise and felt her bare skin.

"More. Please, Erik. More."

She was begging him now. In a tone he had only dreamt of. In his haste, he tore open her chemise. She gasped as his hungry gaze devoured her revealed flesh. He kissed his way from his stomach to her throat, then down again. "Never have I seen anything to rival your beauty."

And he tasted the wetness of her through her pantaloons. Then he pulled them down, revealing her thatch of brown curls. The scent of her rose heady and deep. She was watching him. He dragged his fingers through her juices, and painted his tongue with them.

"No emperor received a finer gift. May I taste you, my Christine?"

Her hazy blue eyes fluttered and a moan escaped her lips. "ErikErikErik"

She shrieked his name as he pressed his mouth to her wetness, and he was lost to sensation at the flavor of her womanhood. Her drawn up knees framed his face, her hands in his hair, gripping him ever closer. He kept his eyes on her face, blessing the pillows that propped her up enough to make that possible. Her legs clenched, and with a final cry she tumbled into ecstasy as he plunged his tongue inside her. He eased her through her climax gently. Cataloguing her every sound and every motion of her face. Beautiful.

"Oh…" She whimpered as he kissed his way up her body, lingering in places that produced such lovely sounds. "I never knew it could be like that." He laid beside her, and his erection brushed her hip.

He moaned. "Christine, how I ache for you."

"Undress." She commanded. "I want to see."

How could he refuse such a request? Heedless of his scars, he stripped down to his undergarments. He saw her gauge the whip-marks and burns that covered his body, but she did not ask, judge, or cry. Her pupils dilated as she looked upon his barely-concealed desire. "Everything."

She pulled down the waistband, and he sprang free. He blushed under her scrutiny. No one had ever seen him thus, engorged and aching. Christine ran her hands down his newly bared chest, tracing every scar with her fingertips. Then her lips. She touched his erection at last with tentative fingertips. She stroked the length of him and he let out a hoarse cry. When she swept the tip with her thumb, he began to drip.

"Show me." She whispered.

He seized her hand and wrapped it around his girth, covered it with his own and squeezed tight. Up and down, and then he let go and he arched into her. This was more than his fantasies, better than anything he could imagine. Stars began to float across his vision and then she moaned. Dear God, she was touching herself.

"Enough," He growled. He seized her and rolled atop her. Rubbing his length to her delicious wetness. It was too much. It wasn't enough. And she was kissing him again as the tip of him entered her, gasping into his mouth as he sheathed himself tight in her wetness.

She cried out, tears springing to her eyes, and he realized the enormity of what he had done. "Forgive me, forgive me." He kissed away her tears, and did his best to stay still while she adjusted to his intrusion

"It is okay, the first time always hurts." He tried to withdraw, and she pulled him to her.

The friction made them both gasp.

"Move." She pleaded. And he did.

They found their rhythm, thrusting and rocking into each other. Her skin beneath his lips, her hands digging into his shoulders and back. It seemed to last forever, and yet it couldn't last long enough. There would never be enough of her tight heat, the softness of her gaze, the touch of her hands. She was granting him absolution with every kiss. Then she gave him the finest gift, the words that had lived in every action of this tryst, and yet remained unspoken.

"Erik, ange, I love you."

Whatever control he had slipped away, and he climaxed with the flutter of her inner walls around him, her name on his lips as he promised love over and over as she clung to him, kissing his brow and stroking his hair. He kissed her gently, careful not to crush her beneath his spent body, and rolled so they were face to face on their sides. She was smiling at him again, but her eyelids fluttered as she stared lovingly at him. Before he could say anything, she drifted into sleep. It was a different level of intimacy entirely, for her to sleep so exposed in his presence. So carefree. So innocent. Beautiful. He kissed her cheek, trailed his fingertips over the curve of her jaw.

He did not belong in this picture. She had confessed her love in the heat of passion, but desire and love were two different things. She might want him, sure… But did she want him beside her in the sun? To walk with in the daylight? To love…? The weight of his thoughts pressed on him. He needed to play, to think, to pace. To run—

He moved to slip away, though it almost physically hurt him to do so. But without the heat of passion his body felt exposed and raw. His heart even more so. If she should wake and regret even an instant of what they had done—he would not be able to go on living without her now. His Christine. He had to go, he had to think. He couldn't be naked when she changed her mind. It would hurt too much. He sat up.

"Where are you going?" And she sounded so afraid, and looked so small that he couldn't bear to go any further away. She tugged the blankets to her neck. "You said you wouldn't leave?"

"I—" He couldn't manage to say anything more, but she knew. She always knew. Just as she had known of his love, his fears. Just as she had listened to his music, and sat beside him. She knew he was afraid.

"I want you here. With me. Stay." She opened her arms, and he fell into them, joining her beneath the blankets.

"I am a foolish man to doubt you, Christine. Once you have made a choice, you do not waver."

"And I choose you." She kissed his nose. "I choose you for everything. Brazen as that may be."

"Oh Christine, the gifts you have bestowed upon me today outnumber the stars in the heavens. I am grateful for every instant, every breath and moment of you."

She buried her blushing face in his bare chest, but notched one leg over his hips to keep him close. "I'm sorry I waited so long to tell you what you mean to me, Erik."

"You have made me happier than I have ever been. To feel your touch, your love of this scarred and hideous body—"

"Believe me when I say, ange, that nothing about what we have done is ugly. You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and I am so glad that in this whole wide world, it was you who heard me crying and became my angel. I'm so glad that I get to love you."

He read the truth in her eyes, and pressed her ever closer. He did not know how he became so lucky. He did not ever care to know so long as they stayed like this. Improbably, impossibly, she loved him. It was a Christmas miracle, and he laughed at the thought.

"Christine, if this is a dream let me never wake up."

"Ange, we will dream together awhile. Then we will get up, take a bath"—he moaned at the image—"and go celebrate Christmas together for the first time."

"Oh Christine, if this is celebrating Christmas—I think the festivities are only just beginning."

And she laughed as he kissed her throat. Because this was the best Christmas that either of them had ever experienced.


End file.
